‘Don’t @ me!’ – what happens when your contact details get famous?

A Londoner with the same name as a Jumanji character is having her Instagram feed besieged by fans. She is just the latest in a long list of people to have their personal info thrust into the limelight

Fate came calling for Bethany Walker late last year. Her name happened to be the same as that of a character in the Jumanji movie reboot. That character took some selfies on an Instagram-style app. And now, Walker’s Instagram handle, @Bethanywalker, is being besieged by fans of tedious remakes starring Dwayne Johnson. This is a problem. Walker, 22, from south London has asked Sony to cut the offending scene from the film. The question “Why don’t you just change your Insta handle?” seems oddly remote from the debate.

That was the highest-charting phone number of all time, until Logic, Khalid and Alessia Cara improved on it last year, with 1-800-273-8255. The number is a suicide prevention hotline. On the day the song was released, the service had the second-highest call volume in its history.

People will phone any number, it seems. The 2003 Jim Carrey comedy Bruce Almighty gave God’s phone number as 776-2323. Universal Pictures claimed that it had blocked off the number for New York state – where the film is set. But a woman in Florida threatened to sue after receiving 20 calls an hour. In North Carolina, the number belonged to a pastor, who happened to be called Bruce. He was not amused. A sandwich shop manager in Manchester who received 70 calls a day was also less than impressed.